Thanks to tawnik for referring me to this awesome rig.

i'll be practising some more now, been a while since i've last been here :)

ANIMATIONS / PICTURES GO FROM OLD TO NEW:

Animation practise 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItVG70_TYJc

Animation practise 2

sketch:


final:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRKgA2c9MvA

Animation practise 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30VCLmpBYJA

Animation practise 4:


"That sounds like a really good idea, but i think i got a better one, how about.... I give YOU the finger.. and you give ME my phonecall"
from the matrix. poseing is next.

done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyViQVVVQ7A

Yayz, no problem man, BUT and its big but, I had to learn this by hard =) plan your animations, really, do the thinking part first, its hard to explain why but it really makes the animations better
1.thinking
2.drawing the poses on paper, just thumbnails
3.getting the poses into max
4.tweak the poses
5.add inbetweens, breakdowns, extremes, whatever
6.tweak
7.apply the linear tangets
8.finalize

10 second clip takes me about a week to get done and its much better than what I was doing before (3 second long tests that I had done in 3 hours and they SUCKED)

believe it or not, I like this way.

Back to your animation, I think you should act my advice and you'll see what you did wrong, I mean, you cant see whats wrong with it now, well you might but here you go
1. easing
2: poses
3. the transition between poses isnt very good, it doesnt "flow" well

but the timing was nice, really, it take me a lot of weeks to get used to 3d, you seem to be born with that :D

Yes, please, take your time, YOU DONT HAVE TO SHOW US NEW ANIMATION EVERY DAY, I had to caps this because some people were telling me this for months and I wasnt taking them seriously and hell, they were right.I realized it.And big thanks to them, cause they know what they were doing. Its kinda hard to plan things, lets say you have an idea, what would I do now, as an experienced plan-making-animator (which Im not) I would take a day or two and just think of it, try to imagine stuff etc, then one day to draw the poses, background, take notes, do the basic timing, try out things on my own (act the scene yourself, record yourself, both very important and very helpful things) and then, after doing all this Id sit in front of my computer and start creating, THIS is the best way to animate, I realized it after 5 years and yeah, thats a lot, I want you to know that cause you're very talented and I really like you =) please, dont be so pig-headed (googled that expression) and act my advice and plan first =D I know this might seem odd, but Im trying to help ;) I guess that this animator (link coming ahead) said "Important things come first" and hell was he right ! :D

check these topics on how to do pose to pose animations and how to offset keys, how to do overlaps, also be sure to read animators survival kit and get Jeff Lews character animation tutorial dvd

http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/popThru/popThru.html
http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/overlap/overlap.html

more useful tutorials, here

http://keithlangotutorials.blogspot.com/

Hope you dont mind me typing that long posts =D

Quote from Tawnik

Yes, please, take your time, YOU DONT HAVE TO SHOW US NEW ANIMATION EVERY DAY, I had to caps this because some people were telling me this for months and I wasnt taking them seriously and hell, they were right.I realized it.And big thanks to them, cause they know what they were doing. Its kinda hard to plan things, lets say you have an idea, what would I do now, as an experienced plan-making-animator (which Im not) I would take a day or two and just think of it, try to imagine stuff etc, then one day to draw the poses, background, take notes, do the basic timing, try out things on my own (act the scene yourself, record yourself, both very important and very helpful things) and then, after doing all this Id sit in front of my computer and start creating, THIS is the best way to animate, I realized it after 5 years and yeah, thats a lot, I want you to know that cause you're very talented and I really like you =) please, dont be so pig-headed (googled that expression) and act my advice and plan first =D I know this might seem odd, but Im trying to help ;) I guess that this animator (link coming ahead) said "Important things come first" and hell was he right ! :D

check these topics on how to do pose to pose animations and how to offset keys, how to do overlaps, also be sure to read animators survival kit and get Jeff Lews character animation tutorial dvd

http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/popThru/popThru.html
http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/overlap/overlap.html

more useful tutorials, here

http://keithlangotutorials.blogspot.com/

Hope you dont mind me typing that long posts =D

Thanks alot man, much appreciated :)

I for one am quite an serious animator, unlike alot of people here. i hope if they read this thread they will change too. that would make this a better place :)

i always wanted to buy the ASK but still haven't done it! will buy it soon tho :)

Further animations will be updated in the first post

You should definitely go for it, you dont have to buy it, just get it ;) and you should also get the jeff lews tutorial as I mentioned above, since once of the topic hes discussing is "Depth", generally it means that you should do the poses more entertaining by adding depth to them, Im talking about it because of your first pose, its really just like flat surface, there isnt much 3d in it, what would I do:

http://filebox.me/view/tyna4uudp

Oh, you deleted the big picture so I captured it from the animation, hope you dont mind it.
This was just for the first pose I think you should spend more time on that ;) dont rush it, poses are important, poses and easing are way the most important things in animation.The animation also looks "robotic" all the body parts are moving at the same frames, theres no offseting, no overlap motion, no secondary motion, you should definitely take more time there as well ;) when he puts the leg back its too fast I can also see the computer nastyness, I see that you applied the tangets and they ease it for you but it doesnt look very good.. its robotic, as I said, you should definitely do more work yourself and leave only a few frames on the computer, he isnt very good inbetweener, what Im becoming to realize is that the more work you do yourself, the better result you get.Im not trying to be harsh or dick by no means, I just want you to notice these things, work on it, master them and then be great animator, I could tell you, yes, it was nice, but why ? Would it help you ? I doubt that =) If you dont agree with me, you dont have to, Im not any better animator than you are, but I just feel like stating out my opinions, I just like to comment stuff and give people tips and ways how to "improve"

If I were you, I'd find something on youtube/vimeo/whatsoever and try to recreate that, its good practice ;)

edit, you have to stop the animation when theres the red and green stuff ;)

Thanks again man :) yeah now i see. i didnt really take enough time to check those things out, thanks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjHxQl-KwEs&feature=fvst

i tried to recreate the kick at 1:44

next test ill put some more tought in it :)

Yeah, thats pretty nice kick and you can see what I was talking about, hes at first staying on the left leg then he jumps on his right one (that one that hes kicking with) and he is just on that one for a while, hes leaning with the second and then he jumps on the left one, he moves his pelvis in the direction of the kick so gets the momentum and them he smashes his oponent, also notice the overlap of all the body parts, what goes first ?
heres perfect example of overlapping in the kick, first go pelvis that drags the upper leg, knee, shin, foot, its like when you have a mouse with long tail, when the mouse jumps the end of the tail stays at its position for quite long time, because it wasnt effected by the jump yet.. I hope its not confusing =D

Quote from Tawnik

Yeah, thats pretty nice kick and you can see what I was talking about, hes at first staying on the left leg then he jumps on his right one (that one that hes kicking with) and he is just on that one for a while, hes leaning with the second and then he jumps on the left one, he moves his pelvis in the direction of the kick so gets the momentum and them he smashes his oponent, also notice the overlap of all the body parts, what goes first ?
heres perfect example of overlapping in the kick, first go pelvis that drags the upper leg, knee, shin, foot, its like when you have a mouse with long tail, when the mouse jumps the end of the tail stays at its position for quite long time, because it wasnt effected by the jump yet.. I hope its not confusing =D

yeah i get it =D

new exercise added!

Yayz, this one looks much better, maybe because its just acting and you're good at it, I like the way he turns, I like the timing, you've got it, but when it comes to that part with the arm doing something, I just didnt get it, seems weird and un natural, hes also jumping up and down a lil bit (what ? you deleted the video ? i just wanted to check if my memory's correct) but yes, definitely a progress, as I said, I like the turning of the head =)

yeah i love acting, ill try to make a short film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30VCLmpBYJA

i deleted it because you didnt really see the hand movement and mouth well.

Animation exercise 4 added!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyViQVVVQ7A

hmmm, it all seems so robotic and computerish (if only that word existed :D) I would recommend you to take a piece of movie and try to recreate that, or an interview, focus on the human movements ;)